


Battle of the Wills

by Missy



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Humor, Pub Quizzes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 09:46:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2846588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leslie's plan to create harmony and promote the cause of her sorority falls by the wayside when a pub quiz night turns into a battle of wills with a table filled with guys from a neighboring frat house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle of the Wills

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JaneEyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneEyre/gifts).



This is all Leslie’s idea. She thinks it will ‘bring harmony and affinity’ to the Alpha Gala Pawna. Ann’s known her for long enough now to smile whenever she refers to their collective power, their fierceness, or if she dares to compare them to that coven of witches from The Craft; Leslie sees every single one of them as tiger warriors stalking the world, and Ann doesn’t have it in her to explain that they’re just ordinary girls trying to pass civics at Pawnee Community College.

But once Leslie’s wound up it’s impossible to get her to calm down. She spends days stalking down space, drawing up cards and then printing fliers for the event. _Come play pub trivia!_ Demanded the flier in Leslie’s super-enthusiastic perfect penmanship. _Test your knowledge of the 70s/80s/90s!_ A good number of the questions Leslie had suggested revolved around politics, which made Ann feel rather uneasy. Ann wasn’t sure she could remember what she had for breakfast, let alone who the Attorney General was in 1996. (This was, not so coincidentally, why she was about to change her major to medicine). April had responded to this by rolling her eyes and throwing in a bunch of pop culture questions before delivering the whole bowl of clues to the bar.

They showed up bright and early at the Strong and Bold Tavern for the quiz, and Ann was surprised to note that they’d manage to draw a fairly decent house. The sorority had its own table, right smack in the center of the room, and it was draped in their signature colors, blue and silver; anyone who wanted to participate in the event had to sit at a table or booth in the surrounding area, to better keep everyone within earshot. Leslie, naturally, had come wearing the order’s colors as well complete with hand-frosted cupcakes to match. The rest of the women had tried to follow Leslie’s orders – but as always there was something else going on beneath the surface for each of them. April had skipped out on a date with her soon-to-be-ex boyfriend for this, and had only managed to follow Leslie’s request by the skin of her teeth, sporting purple lipstick that set off her bright red highlights. Donna had her cell phone glued to her ear and was in the middle of a lively conversation with her next hook-up. Ann was carefully organizing the condiments and butter pats so Leslie wouldn’t knock them over in her enthusiasm. And Leslie was eating a huge plate of waffles while she waited for the crowd to finish filtering in.

When she was satisfied, she signaled for their barman to start the show. He was an older guy with a very full mustache who had apparently won the S&B in an arm-wrestling contest with the owner. Ann believed it, especially when he grabbed the place’s karaoke night microphone and said, “Welcome to tonight’s quiz bowl. I had no hand in arranging the questions, as I believe that organized intellectual competitions are a sign of a fascist society. And now, Leslie Knopf.”

Leslie smiled – well, it could technically be called a smile – and took the microphone from the barman. “It’s…it’s actually Knope.” Then, to the audience, “all right! Are we ready to get rowdy?” Silence. “Good,” Leslie said, reaching for the fishbowl. “These are the rules: I’ll read a question, and if you know what it is, hold up your hand and yell! If you’re wrong, we’ll go to the next person. The winner gets two free passes to the Pawnee Museum of Natural History, a twenty dollar value!”

“Can we sell them for cash!” somebody shouted from the crowd.

“No, these passes are non-refundable.” The crowd shifted. Leslie pressed on, reaching into the bowl and pulled out a question. “Where does Spongebob Squarepants live?” Leslie frowned, her eyes bugging out as she held the slip of paper at arm’s length. 

“I KNOW! I KNOW!” The voice came from a guy with a red beard and a friendly, puppy-like look in his eyes. “In a pineapple under the sea!”

“That’s right…I didn’t put that question in this bowl, but that’s right!” Leslie spared a glare for April, who glowered right back until Leslie turned away to dig around in the bowl. 

She pulled out a question. “All right – ooh, this one’s good! Who was the British prime minister during the 1980’s?” Silence filled the room. “Anybody?”

A hand shot up from the sorority’s table. “Anthony Heddison?” The name had popped into Ann’s mind.

Leslie’s expression turned sympathetic. “Oh Ann. You’re beautiful but you know nothing about British politics, I will tutor you later. Anyone else?”

Another hand shot up, this one from the man sitting beside the red-bearded Spongebob fan. “Margaret Thatcher.”

“That’s right!” Leslie said. She dug around for another question. “How many branches exist in the American Government?”

The same man raised his hand. “Three: legislative, judicial and executive.”

“But can you say it in Klingon?” asked Leslie.

“Trick question, Klingons don’t believe in traditional government. Now give me a hard one.”

Leslie snarled and Ann started genuinely worrying about the guy in the audience. The next questions are about Jackie Joiner-Kersey, the real face behind Rosie the Riveter, and the amount of ice cream in a Klondike bar – and he nailed every single one. 

“Let me take over,” Ann hissed to Leslie, who pouted like a very large toddler, shooting a death glare at their educated stranger. Leslie had frozen in place, and Ann had to maneuver her offstage. 

“Um, hi, my name is Ann…”

“BORING!” shouted April from the audience.

“Let’s go on with the next question,” she continued. The question she pulled from the bowl read, “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie –“

“THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW!” yelled Leslie.

“You wrote half of these questions yourself! That’s cheating,” Ann whispered.

“Don’t really care,” she hissed back. 

And so it went for the rest of the night. At the midpoint break, the tally was evenly split between the guys’ table and theirs, fifty-to-fifty. 

“Maybe you should let some other people answer questions,” suggested Ann.

“Oh Ann, you innocent little kitten, I can’t do that,” Leslie said.

“Why?”

“Because there’s this guy. Let’s call him,” Leslie said, “Mister Annoying, for current purposes. Well, Mister Annoying thinks he’s going to out-geek us during this trivia bowl, and no way on Pawnee’s green earth I’m going to let him get away with it!”

“Pawnee’s Green Earth?” echoed Ann incredulously. Then she quickly added, “It’s an open crawl, I don’t think we have the right to kick them out.”

“We may not,” Leslie said, “but we could always come up with a super-ultra mega-impossible question that nobody else could ever answer.” 

She pulled the girls into a tighter circle and there they began to plot.

*** 

And so Ann offered a final, bonus question to the audience – for all of the marbles, as Leslie told her to say. “Name all of the siblings on the Waltons, in birth order, to the tune of Campton Ladies.”

But it wasn’t Mister Annoying who raised his hand – it was the kind-faced guy sitting between him and the chubby and now –passed-out frat dude. “John Boy, Jim-Bob, Elizabeth, Mary Ellen, Jason, Erin, and Ben!” And, with great flourish, headed, “all the do dah day.”

Mister Annoying slapped the edge of the bar, then thrust his arm awkwardly into the air and waved it about drunkenly. “Bam, give us that certificate!”

“Crap!” Leslie hissed. “Is that right?” she asked Ann.

“I don’t know, I was a Dukes of Hazzard fan!” Her worst fears were confirmed by Donna, who had long ago given up on the contest and was browsing with her phone. 

“Looks legit,” she said. “But I was more of a Charlie’s Angels fan.”

This gave the works to Mister Annoying’s team, and it was an aggression that Leslie wouldn’t let stand. “And now for the super lightning bonus round,” she said, hijacking the microphone right out of Ann’s hands. “For this final question – which will award ALL of the marbles to the player with the right answer…”

“Come on! This is total crap!” Mister Annoying cried.

“ ALL of the marbles!” Leslie yelled. “The winner has to recite the Alpha Gala Omega pledge while doing a headstand!” 

“OH COME ON!” Mister Annoying yelled.

“Leslie, honey, it’s over. We lost. Which is okay! Because I kind of think we were supposed to do that in a situation like this.”

Leslie was already in a headstand position, already reciting, as Ann handed the certificate over.

*** 

Afterwards, Mister Annoying approached the table with his friends. “Just wanted to thank you guys for a good challenge,” he said. “You really were incredible.”

“Incredible’s worth bullpucky when you want to win,” grumbled Leslie.

“I really mean it,” Mister Annoying said. He held out his hand. “My name’s Ben. Oh, and this is Chris and that’s Andy,” he said, indicating the tender-looking guy and the bleary-looking frat boy. Ann smiled at Chris, and he smiled back; Andy, meanwhile, was telling fart jokes to April while she fixed him with a less-deadly than usual death glare. 

“I never lose, Ben,” she said, her voice redolent with sarcasm. 

“Neither do I,” Ben said. “But,” he added, “it was a lot of fun winning with you. Maybe someday I’ll find out what it’s like to lose with you.”

Leslie raised an eyebrow. “Yes, you win this one, Ben Annoying Guy.”

“Uh…it’s Wyatt,” he added. “Uh…by the way here’s my number, come on guys we’ve got curfew to meet bye!” 

Leslie took the scribbled-down note, cringing as if she were handling a full dirty diaper. While they were brooding, Ben bought them a round of mozzarella sticks. And though Leslie grumped that they were tainted by the bitter taste of loserdom, Ann helped her nosh them down…with Ben’s number still in the front pocket of Leslie’s blouse.


End file.
